Volume III, Number 21. 15 November 2021.

The Communist Party of the Philippines, all revolutionary forces and friends of the revolutionary movement are deeply saddened by the death of Ka Oris, Comrade Jorge Madlos. The Filipino people, especially the countless peasants and Lumad people whom Ka Oris personally encountered in more than five decades of revolutionary service, feel a deep sense of loss with Ka Oris’ death, but at the same time, are enraged over how he was killed by the cowardly and dishonorable fascists.

Ka Oris was a true communist cadre and fighter. He devoted his life wholly and unwaveringly to the cause of all the oppressed and exploited people to free them from the yoke of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

He was a young student activist in the early 1970s and was on his fifth year as an agricultural engineering student when martial law was declared in 1972. He was arrested in 1974 and detained until 1976. Upon his release, he went directly to the countryside. He joined the New People’s Army as a young man and belonged to one of the first squads of Red fighters who broke ground in Mindanao.

He played an important role in the growth of the NPA through the 1970s and 1980s. From a few squads, the NPA grew to several companies as they carried out mass work, military work and waging antifeudal struggles. Thousands upon thousands joined the Party to help lead the people’s war.

In the 1990s, Ka Oris served as one of the strongest pillars of the Second Great Rectification Movement. Over the course of the past two decades, the people’s war would rage across the five regions in Mindanao island as the NPA carried out intensive and extensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base.

In 2015, he was appointed to serve as one of the leading commanders of the National Operational Command of the NPA. During the Party’s historic Second Congress in 2016, Ka Oris was elected as a member of the Central Committee, the Political Bureau and the Executive Committee, and was tasked to be among the leading cadres in the Military Commission and the Mindanao Commission. He was also assigned as a consultant of the NDFP in peace negotiations.

As a Party leader, Ka Oris studied and firmly applied Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. He meticulously studied the history and successful experiences of waging people’s war in semicolonial and semifeudal countries. He devoted time and effort to training the young cadres and Red fighters in the art and science of guerrilla warfare. He wrote manuals and training courses for the NPA, enriched by the past and new experiences in waging guerrilla warfare.

Ka Oris was a staunch defender of the environment. For several decades, he led units of the NPA who fought against companies which ravaged the environment. As spokesperson, Ka Oris had numerous encounters with journalists, making a lot of friends among reporters and writers. Through his efforts, not a few journalists saw how different the revolutionary movement was from the image of “terrorists” persistently being painted by the real terrorists – the fascist reactionaries.

Despite his public and organizational stature, Ka Oris remained a humble revolutionary who shunned the easy life and chose the difficult and arduous life of a Party cadre and guerrilla fighter. He was able to remain generally healthy, manage his permanently damaged urinary bladder and able to march for days on end, even during months of guerrilla maneuvers in the face of intense enemy operations.

The love of the broad masses of workers and peasants for Ka Oris is matched only by the hatred of the ruling classes, tyrants and the fascist terrorists who perpetuate the oppressive and exploitative system. By taking away his life, the fascists succeeded only in immortalizing Ka Oris. He now lives forever in the hearts and minds of the Filipino people as one of their heroes and icons. His indomitable spirit of revolutionary resistance serves to inspire future generations who will carry on the fight for genuine national freedom and social liberation, land for the landless and national industrialization, and for the emancipation of people from all forms of oppression and exploitation. UP

Excerpted from The Memory of Ka Oris Will Live Forever.
Central Committee, Communist Party of the Philippines. 2 November 2021.